The European Union has published a binding directive to all 28 member states forbidding any funding, cooperation, awarding of scholarships, research funds or prizes to anyone residing in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The regulation, which goes into effect on Friday, requires that any agreement or contract signed by an EU country with Israel include a clause stating that the settlements are not part of the State of Israel and therefore are not part of the agreement.

A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the new ruling, which was published on June 30, as an "earthquake." ...

The official noted that the significance of the regulation is both practical and political: From now on, if the Israeli government wants to sign agreements with the European Union or one of its member states, it will have to recognize in writing that the West Bank settlements are not part of Israel.

Due to go into effect on Friday, there is bound to be some intense lobbying before then.

I like to point out that you're a Jew hating cunt when you post stuff about Israel, just in case anybody isn't aware of that.

Otherwise known as stalking.. Really big of you. All started after your lies were exposed and you've never been able to simply ackowledge, feign some regret and move on. Instead you dragged up the ubiquitous anti-Semite card that morons like you utilise when things don't go their way.

cuchulainn wrote:When will they have such a deal with China regarding Tibet?

Balls on a European are a relative thing. They don't have the balls to stand up to either of those nations. They don't even have the balls to label Hizbollah a terror organization. To them, it's a political party, that apparently has more legitimacy than an Israeli student who lives in an Israeli neighborhood in East Jerusalem. They have the balls to make righteous proclamations against the Jewish state and no more.

Disco wrote:To them, it's a political party, that apparently has more legitimacy than an Israeli student who lives in an Israeli neighborhood in East Jerusalem.

Pretending that the settlements are all neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem is exactly the bullshit that the EU has finally had enough of. Israel thinks that it can steal land, plonk a few buildings on it and that territory then becomes part of Israel and its residents Israeli. It is this delusion that has prompted the EU to act.

Disco would have you believe, this policy is about "neighbourhoods" of East Jerusalem, when it is in fact about the settlements of the West Bank, in numerous instances, some distance from Jerusalem and Israel.

Well, their declaration about settlements is about both the kind teo is pointing out and neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. That was precisely my point. Good luck enforcing this heavy handed proclamation.

BTW, the idea that this is Yurp growing balls is hilarious. This is some non-binding proclamation.

Interesting that teo ties this in to the EU role in the peace process, which I'd forgotten all about, as I'm sure most everyone else has.

Disco just can't give up the delusion that what he refers to as neighbourhoods of EJ are recognised by most others, including the EU, as settlements. Perhaps he could name a few of these "neighbourhoods" just to clarify? I suspect they're all on annexed/occupied land.

No surprises, Logg has done a runner when asked to name any of what he calls neighbourhoods and his three-legged toothless poodle has shown up to claim that there are no Jewish settlements. One calls them neighbourhoods, the other denies they exist and in a nutshell you have examples of the obfuscation the EU has tired of.

With panicked Israeli lobbying underway to have the EU delay or retract this policy, there is at last a bit of pressure on Israel to move beyond the status quo that has been to their advantage.

I don't pay exact attention to these sorts of maps because they're not worth the paper they're printed on. But some of the neighborhoods I'd be interested in are the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. Where exactly does that begin and end according to the EU map? On some maps, one side of a narrow lane is Israel and the other is occupied territory, subject to boycott one presumes.

I'm fairly certain that Pisga'at Zeev would be considered occupied territory according their maps, but how about French Hill? Ramat Eshkol?

I'm fairly certain that Pisga'at Zeev would be considered occupied territory according their maps, but how about French Hill? Ramat Eshkol?

As well as Mt Scopus. Damn! We should never hasv sold our partment on Fench Hill.

Polar, I think if you look at the old 1949 armistice-based maps, the Mt. Scopus campus is considered an 'exclave', a little patch of land that belongs to Israel even though it isn't connected to the rest of Israel. Between 1949-67 it was subjected to the same circumstances it was during the War of Independence. Israel was permitted a UN escorted convoy up to the campus site once a month or some such. Of course, the campus didn't function anymore and they had to open a new one in Givat Ram. Naturally, once Israel took over the city in 1967, they didn't have to worry about internationally supervised convoys anymore.

But I think the net result is that Mt. Scopus counts as Israeli Jerusalem on these maps, while French Hill and all other post-67 neighborhoods don't. Interestingly, Idelson Dormitories, if you know where that is, counts as occupied East Jerusalem I think.

I love French Hill, beautiful location. I guess according to the EU, these people had better move though.

Polar, I think if you look at the old 1949 armistice-based maps, the Mt. Scopus campus is considered an 'exclave', a little patch of land that belongs to Israel even though it isn't connected to the rest of Israel

y9ou're right. But, as you said, iot was pretty muhc of no use to Hebrew University. Mt Scopus was the site of a massacre in April 1948 when a convoy of ambulances were ambushed

I love French Hill, beautiful location

The locationis beautiful, but the apt buildings look like cierette boxes. We had an apartment on the parade route for the 25th Indendence Day celebration

EreichDCComic was, of course, the one doing the chasing. He appears to have misquoted Polar in his autosignature, something he has trouble with.

Polar, I think if you look at the old 1949 armistice-based maps, the Mt. Scopus campus is considered an 'exclave', a little patch of land that belongs to Israel even though it isn't connected to the rest of Israel

y9ou're right. But, as you said, iot was pretty muhc of no use to Hebrew University. Mt Scopus was the site of a massacre in April 1948 when a convoy of ambulances were ambushed

I love French Hill, beautiful location

The locationis beautiful, but the apt buildings look like cierette boxes. We had an apartment on the parade route for the 25th Indendence Day celebration

What Israeli apartments in the 70s didn't look like crappy boxes?

Yeah, the Mt. Scopus convoy massacre was infamous. Interesting to think that when Hebrew U was built in the 1920s, access was open. Then when the war began, it was cut off, and to get there from the rest of Jm they had to run convoys, one of which was massacred as the British looked on. That's sort of how Jm was with the rest of Israel during that war, cut off and dependent on convoys. And of course, the Old City of Jm's Jewish Quarter was similarly cut off but ended up falling.

After 1967 all of these points are moot.

BTW, do you know of the Idelson Dorms? Were they built when you were there? I'm guessing the EU considers these occupied territory.

The simple test is, was the land occupied an built up following the 1967 war?

Ramat Eshkol fails that test, in that it was captutred and occupied as a consequence of the '67 War and construction commenced shortly thereafter.

The Geneva Convention

It is widely accepted that under international law, the Jewish settlements in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 are illegal.Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war states: "The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own population into the territories it occupies."Within the international community the overwhelming view is that Article 49 is applicable to the occupation of the West Bank including East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights.Almost the entire international community, including allies of Israel, have referred to the situation in these territories as occupation.The position that the 4th Geneva Convention does apply to the West Bank, Gaza and Golan Heights is supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross, UN bodies, and the International Court of Justice.Israel is a party to the Geneva Conventions, and bound by its obligations.

I have a cognitive map of Jerusalem. No sense trying to pin down a paper map while things are in flux. I'm fairly certain the 1949 Armistice lines are no longer the working border though. Good luck with that.

As per your comment below, how does the Jewish Quarter of the Old City factor into the simple test?

TerryTeo wrote:The simple test is, was the land occupied an built up following the 1967 war?

Ramat Eshkol fails that test, in that it was captutred and occupied as a consequence of the '67 War and construction commenced shortly thereafter.

The Geneva Convention

It is widely accepted that under international law, the Jewish settlements in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 are illegal.Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war states: "The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own population into the territories it occupies."Within the international community the overwhelming view is that Article 49 is applicable to the occupation of the West Bank including East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights.Almost the entire international community, including allies of Israel, have referred to the situation in these territories as occupation.The position that the 4th Geneva Convention does apply to the West Bank, Gaza and Golan Heights is supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross, UN bodies, and the International Court of Justice.Israel is a party to the Geneva Conventions, and bound by its obligations.

There was the partition plan, there was the armistice agreement. Nothing in the partition plan pointed to E Jerusalem being within a Palestinians star. . The armistice agreement marks a cease fire line, while a state of war still remained in place.

"Widely accepted" means that is the popular opinion. Borders are not mandated from "wide acceptance opinion" . Is it also "widely accepted" that Tibet within the borders of China?

EreichDCComic was, of course, the one doing the chasing. He appears to have misquoted Polar in his autosignature, something he has trouble with.

We have Disco and Rainman providing perfect examples of the obfuscation surrounding Israels borders. Refusal to evidence a single map that stipulates Israels borders, because as we know, these are ever changing as far as the land theft permits. Rainman denying the applicability of the Geneva Convention, no where else in the world does he argue that it doesn't apply.

This is exactly the obstinance that has motivated the EU to propose this move. Its a great move that is likely to result in cracking the current impasse.

By "sorting it out", Israel will be forced into a weaker position than it previously thought it was in. One of Israels biggest diplomatic problems at the moment is that it doesn't have a Foreign Minister and hasn't had one for beyond 6 months. In another of Netanyahus dodgy deals the position is being held for the former Foreign FM who was forced to resign his post to fight corruption charges. This has left Israel weak in protecting its diplomatic status and this news of the EU's move has Israel worried.

It is the first pawn out of the front row with plenty of manouvering to follow, but if cooperation with the EU is based on Israels acceptance of the relevance of the '67 borders, beyond security matters, this cooperation will grind to a halt. Expansion of the proposal into trade and commerce will have significant implications for Israel and this is the threat that will shadow Israels appetite for productive negotiations.

It is the first pawn out of the front row with plenty of manouvering to follow, but if cooperation with the EU is based on Israels acceptance of the relevance of the '67 borders, beyond security matters, this cooperation will grind to a halt.

Which is why it isn't going to happen.

Expansion of the proposal into trade and commerce will have significant implications for Israel and this is the threat that will shadow Israels appetite for productive negotiations.

Really not going to happen, as there's hundreds of millions of euro per year of trade, and would immediately attract the attention of national leaders, not just Eurocrats.

Fleabag, Israel has lived for years with the delusion that it would never happen. If you think Euro leaders will prevent anything from happening, ask yourself, how did this get to the stage that its at and before now, how were the Palestinians able to gain to gain observer status at the UN. Israel believed it could see these two moves off and failed. It will be the accumulation of diplomatic moves by the Palestinians and by other nations that will progressively strangle Israel into action. Similarly threatening to cut aid to the PA may be just as persuasive for them.

You saying its really not going to happen should give no confidence to the Israelis.

It is the first pawn out of the front row with plenty of manouvering to follow, but if cooperation with the EU is based on Israels acceptance of the relevance of the '67 borders, beyond security matters, this cooperation will grind to a halt.

Which is why it isn't going to happen.

Expansion of the proposal into trade and commerce will have significant implications for Israel and this is the threat that will shadow Israels appetite for productive negotiations.

Really not going to happen, as there's hundreds of millions of euro per year of trade, and would immediately attract the attention of national leaders, not just Eurocrats.

I'd tend to agree. Eurocrats and the constituency of the member nations of the EU are two different things.

The EU faces considerable lobbying from Arab groups and lefties. They are rather embarrassed by their irrelevance on the Israeli issue. The reality is that the EU nation members like to trade with Israel, but the eurocrats need to make pronouncements every once in awhile to satisfy their antizionist contingency and show that they're making an effort. Nothing new there. Generally these tend to be statements that say the most without actually doing anything. That's what this looks like.

Disco wrote:So where does the Jewish Quarter of the Old City fall on Europe's map?

As was previously noted, was the land in Israeli hands before the '67 War, or did Israel take possession following? You know the answer to that, so the answer is straight forward. You can pretend that this is complicated, but in reality it isn't. Israel will clearly retain the Jewish Quarter following any final peace settlement, so it is in Israels interests, in so far as this move by the EU will impact, to reach final peace settlement, sooner rather than later.

Particularly since there are numerous educational facilities within the JQ and these will be specifically impacted by the EU's directive.

The EU directive is not a determinant of the borders, but an accepted (not by Israel admittedly) base line to establish a point from which to proceed its action. For sentimental reasons, you are focusing on an area (the JQ), that is home to a little over 2,000 residents, when the real implications of this directive are directed at the hundreds of thousands of settlers on occupied territory beyond Jerusalem.

The existence of Arab lobby groups and lefties may provide a convenient excuse for you to dismiss the seriousness of this action by the EU, but unless you can make these lobby groups disappear and then persuade the EU populace that Israel does have a divine right to occupy the Palestinian territories, the reality is that Israel is facing a gradual swell of similar protest actions.

I am pleased to see that John Kerry has announced the impending resumption of direct negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis.

Op-ed: Boycott of Israel cheap way to score points with oil-producing Arab states and Europe's Muslim populationNoah Beck

The European Union recently sent out a directive barring its 28 members from cooperating with Israeli entities in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The boycott includes “all funding, cooperation, and the granting of scholarships, research grants and prizes” to Israeli entities in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.

If this is how the EU chooses to spend its limited diplomatic and political resources "to help" the Middle East, then its moral compass is badly broken. The EU still hasn't even mustered the clarity or courage to join the US, Canada, and six Gulf states (led by Bahrain) in designating Hezbollah a terrorist organization, even though Hezbollah has committed terrorist acts on EU soil that killed an EU citizen, and has supported Bashar Assad's butchery in Syria. The EU has also failed to take any decisive action to address the urgent crises in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran (which marches ever closer to nukes and imports ore -- for armor and missile production -- from Germany and France). And where is the EU's boycott of Mideast governments that persecute women, execute homosexuals, and condone the slaughter of Christians?

If the EU wants to wield its economic clout to impose peace on disputing parties, why not boycott China for its brutal occupation of Tibet? Clearly that occupation doesn't matter because the EU is China's largest trading partner. And why isn't the EU boycotting Northern Cyprus, which is under foreign military occupation by Turkey (against the wishes of the EU)?The hypocrisy is even more flagrant because some EU states are themselves occupying disputed territories on various continents. One of the most notorious examples is the Falkland Islands. What exactly is the UK's burning security interest in occupying a Latin American island nearly 8,000 miles away? Maybe the EU should boycott the UK as well.

In the end, an EU boycott of Israel is just a cheap way to score political points with the oil-producing Arab states and the growing Muslim population on European soil. Indeed, the EU's anti-Israel directive resembles Stephen Hawking's ill-fated attempt to inject himself into the Israeli-Palestinian controversy. Just as he absurdly chose to boycott the country largely responsible for the technology that enables him to communicate, the EU shamelessly targets the only country in the Middle East that actually shares the EU's democratic values, respect for human rights, pluralism, and the rule of law (not to mention shared interests like curbing Iranian nukes, developing natural gas resources in the Mediterranean Sea, and seeing moderates prevail in the volatile Middle East).

Putting aside the EU's abundant hypocrisy, trying to strong-arm Israel into unilateral concessions has already proven to be an abysmal failure when it comes to promoting peace. Just ask President Obama, who in 2009 pressured Israel into a 10-month settlement freeze in the West Bank without requiring any reciprocal gestures from the Palestinians. They quickly realized that they need not negotiate with Israel because Obama was doing that for them. One can hardly blame Palestinians for trying to maximize their negotiating posture, even if it lacks good faith. Thus, peace talks have remained stalled for Obama's entire presidency, even though Secretary of State John Kerry is now making his sixth peace-pushing trip (in as many months) to the region.

It's also worth noting that the real obstacle to peace -- Palestinian rejectionism and terrorism -- existed before any of Israel's settlement-building. Palestinian terrorism and rejectionism from Gaza also continued despite the removal of Israeli settlements (from Gaza in 2005). So Israeli settlements did not create Palestinian extremism and their removal doesn't necessarily end it.

History has also demonstrated that Israeli settlement building has not prevented Israel from making painful territorial compromises for peace: Menachem Begin evacuated the Sinai, Ehud Barak ended Israel's presence in southern Lebanon, Ariel Sharon left Gaza, and Benjamin Netanyahu handed over West Bank territories under the Wye Accords.

Moreover, the EU seems to have forgotten that Jews have a historical and legal right to be in the West Bank. The "Mandate for Palestine" confirmed by the League of Nations recognized the "historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" and "the grounds for reconstituting their National Home in that country." Under Article 6, the Mandate encouraged "close settlement by Jews, on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes." The EU's boycott falsely implies that Jews have no right to live in the West Bank.

Lastly, the EU's (and US') position on Israeli West Bank construction lacks balance because Palestinian construction is never limited. As Eli Hertz notes: "The Oslo Accords do not forbid Israeli or Arab settlement activity. Charging that further Jewish settlement activity preempts final negotiations by establishing realities, requires reciprocity. If Jews were forcibly expelled from the West Bank in 1948 during a war of aggression aimed at them (but then recaptured the West Bank in the defensive war of 1967), then these Territories must be considered disputed Territories, at the least...According to David Bar-Ilan, a former policy planning official, the tempo of Arab construction is 'more than 10 times the number of buildings under construction (in the Territory) than those approved (by the Israeli government) for the (Jewish) settlers.'"

If the EU wants to ignore international law and history, the many more pressing Mideast issues, and its own hypocrisy, all for the sake of promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace, then it should at least recognize that unilateral pressure on Israel has only reinforced Palestinian inflexibility. Indeed, it is only the Palestinians who have refused to negotiate peace without preconditions. The EU has pressured the wrong party because its Mideast compass is badly broken.

Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East

As was previously noted, was the land in Israeli hands before the '67 War, or did Israel take possession following? You know the answer to that, so the answer is straight forward. You can pretend that this is complicated, but in reality it isn't. Israel will clearly retain the Jewish Quarter following any final peace settlement, so it is in Israels interests, in so far as this move by the EU will impact, to reach final peace settlement, sooner rather than later.

Unless you consider Jordanians as the same as Palestinians, it was not in Palestinian as well. Quite amazing that. There is the myth pf Palestinian possession.

EreichDCComic was, of course, the one doing the chasing. He appears to have misquoted Polar in his autosignature, something he has trouble with.

Under Article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the 1998 ICC Statute, “[t]he transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies” constitutes a war crime in international armed conflicts

Your attempt to argue that Israel took the territory off the Jordanians means nothing. The Geneva Convention is clear about the occupying powers responsibilities about not populating conquered territory.